Adding to the stream of reports about how people do more and more on their mobile devices, mobile ad network Greystripe just released the results of a survey about the movie research process.
The network says it recruited participants through, yes, a mobile ad in its network, ultimately surveying 248 smartphone users (including iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android) and 298 iPad users in November of 2011. It found that those smartphone and iPad owners are indeed movie goers, with 39 percent of smartphone respondents and 41 percent of iPad respondents watching movies more than four times a year. And they’re using their gadgets to decide what and when to watch, with 52 percent of smartphone users and 27 percent of iPad users who see movies in theaters saying that they searched for listings or times on their devices.
In both categories, apps were used more often than the mobile web for research. The breakdown was 30 percent apps vs. 23 percent web on smartphones, and it was 17 percent vs. 10 percent on iPads.
Of course, the real message of this survey is the fact that Greystripe (which was acquired by ValueClick last year) wants movie studios to spend their ad dollars in its network, so there were some ad-specific questions, too. It found that more than 60 percent of respondents in both categories hear about movies from ads, and that 52 percent of smartphone users and 44 percent of iPad users make decisions on what to see based on those ads — so they’re not quite as influential as friends’ recommendations, but they’re more important than reviews or the movie’s cast.
You can download a PDF of the report here.